 Hold on. Hi, and welcome to Dare to Dream. This is Debbie Daschinger. And we're going to be having a real conversation today. And part of what we're going to be talking about a little bit later on is digital marketing, but in a way you've never heard it discussed. And what I love about what we're going to be talking about today, this is something you know. For 13 years, you've been listening to me. I make fun of out in the world, which is all these formulas, right? And then I get so many coaching clients who come to me and they're just so overwhelmed because they feel like they have to do it. So many different pieces, like everything we hear out there as entrepreneurs, we end up feeling like, well, I have to execute this and this and this and my God, we get exhausted. And you don't, by the way, you don't. So I've taught you my piece about visibility. And today we're going to learn a digital marketing piece from somebody who's really brilliant in this regard. So Debbie Daschinger, Dare to Dream, this show has been nominated for two people's choice podcast awards for a Webby Award. You can subscribe to the show. Please leave a five star review. This is how other people find this amazing conversation. And if you love what you hear, because you're listening to podcasts, then go over to the YouTube site because on YouTube, you will also find us. And on YouTube, it's at youtube.com slash Debbie Daschinger. A lot of people really love that aspect of seeing me and the guest live and animated. It's lots of fun. This show can be heard on Google Podcasts on Spreaker, YouTube, BBS Radio, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and more. And it's number 100 in self-improvement on Apple Podcasts in the whole USA, 32 in Portugal, 37 in Canada, 99 in Malaysia. I try to keep these current so you can learn what's going on. And we're under 100 in overall global release. So I am a certified coach whose expertise is visibility in media. And I coach people how to write a page-turner book. I show you, because my company does a fully done for the author, how to get you to international guaranteed bestseller. And I pull back the curtain so you have a system finally to be interviewed on radio and podcasts and get massive results for your business and your being. I enjoy showing people how they can use media exposure to find their tribe, to fill their workshops, sell their books, your community, get followers, and repurpose their exposure. So they have a tsunami of even more positive media exposure, because media begets media when it's done right. I want to thank Dr. Dane here and Access Consciousness for sponsoring this show. If you'd like to know more about the energy healing work they do out in the world, go to Dr. Dane, D-A-I-N, here, H-E-E-R dot com, as well as Access Consciousness dot com. They are worldwide. So the question is, do you want to learn how to empower your business to ethically scale it? My guest today is George Bryant. He's a New York Times bestselling author. And he's one of the most highly thought after digital marketing consultants in the world who teaches his relationships beat algorithms approach to business. George has helped hundreds of the largest companies in the world and thousands of entrepreneurs. I'm just starting out in his course myself, so I'm pretty excited. And he's helped them, us, me, all of us to ethically scale our businesses by deepening our relationships with our customers and creating transformational breakthroughs that help them, me, us, accomplish our goals. He believes that a company's financial success is directly dependent on the amount of value they share before and after a purchase. The relationships beat algorithms approach teaches companies to put relationships before transactions in order to win. You can learn more about him at mindofGeorge.com. I love that mindofGeorge.com. It's so perfect for you. George, welcome to Dear to Dream. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. I know, me too. When we last met, well, we had some pretty intense powwows for me for sure, which I think you deliver a lot to people. It's just for innate ability. I mean, man, that's where I got to start. So you have a, like, off the hook energy. You have a way of reading people. You get right in there. But it's like, it feels to me like extreme downloads that you're receiving channeling, receiving channeling. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like, what kind of matrix do you see in a person? And how does that work inside of you? Yeah, it's, I think it's taken me 37 years just to understand that that's what's happening. You know, and it really, you know, it started as a child. I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional home, drug abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and, you know, through multiple seven figures of healing recovery modalities, right? To be a functioning human being these days. Basically, I figured out that, you know, I did one of two things. I didn't go down the path of recreating my trauma. I intellectualized my trauma and tried to understand. And I started learning at a very young age, like two, three, four, the power of words and people. And like, I started to read my parents. I knew when I was gonna get hit or not get hit. When I was gonna get yelled at, not get held at. And it kind of kept me as a very like fighter flight state as a child that carried through bullying and a lot of things. And then I ended up joining the Marine Corps and spent 12 years on active duty, three combat tours. And, you know, we spend years training those spidey senses even more for combat and intuition and gut. And, you know, not necessarily in the best capacity, but the same skill set, like the same tool and it depends how you use it. And so I lived most of my life pretty disconnected and unconscious, right? Like I was being run by my pain from my wounds, from life happened to me, poor me, suicidal tendencies, attempts, addictions, depression, hospitalizations, I kind of been through it all. And it was a couple years, you know, after my military service, Afghanistan, Somalia, I had some really horrendous injuries, but, you know, there's many podcasts about those out there. I'll save the seven-hour story for another one. And then I lost my dad to cancer and we didn't really have a relationship. I didn't talk to my mom for 18 years. And, you know, things were really, really, on the surface they looked amazing, right? Like I had all the bullets. I was very high up in the military, successful here. The body of my dreams, the quote-unquote life of my dreams, and I just hated every ounce of it. I hated every ounce of it. And what ended up being a blessing of disguise is I got too injured to stay and they said, we're gonna medically separate you. And I was like, what am I gonna do? I have no money, I don't get a retirement. Like what am I gonna do? But it was a really big catalyst for me and I realized that in that moment, like some things had to change. You know, it all stacked up, the divorce, my dad lost everything. So I was like, I need to take my life back. And I was like, I was bulimic for 15 years. I was like, orthorexic. I was addicted to working out. I mean, I had every single addiction you could hide. And I find I was just changing the modality, but it was still just an addiction to either escapism or self-harm in one way, shape, or another. And so I was like, I'm gonna teach myself how to cook and I'm gonna heal myself from the inside out. And I didn't know this at the time, but I basically was like, I need accountability. So I'm just gonna document this on the internet, right? 2010, like Facebook page, that was it. And I posted every day and sure enough, two years later, I was a 22 week New York Times bestselling cookbook author and number one app in the world and blah, blah, blah, blah. But the problem was I still hadn't healed what was underneath it. Now I just had this new tool and these new words and this new business to kind of hide. And then I became addicted to social media and boom, a couple million followers, right? Like you kind of go through all of this and then my wife was eight months pregnant and we were probably two weeks away from bankruptcy. And on the surface, I looked like I had all together. I was on morning shows, I was on news radio. I mean, I was all over the world and I was losing like 40 grand a month. And here I was trying to be this person, trying to be this man and just really just pretending to be somebody I'm not and trying to show the world the different lens of me. And I basically realized that for 30, 40 years I did that and there was finally enough pressure that I just broke. I just couldn't hold it anymore. I couldn't maintain it. And I ended up going to the jungle and I spent six days in silence and everything really started to change. I got to figure out who I was, what I wanted to do and I started really doing the work, right? I'd done a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR. I have to ask you how hard was the silence? Because that would like- It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. Like no joke, I almost lost my legs. I've had surgeries, I've almost died, like nothing compared to that because words were both like a weapon and a tool for me. They were a weapon because I could use them to move people into doing what I wanted to survive but then they were also a tool that I would use to manipulate people to try to survive, right? To always have an angle, to know my out, to know where the door was, to know that I was safe because really all I was trying to do was protect that little boy the whole time, right? Like if I knew or I could predict or influence what you were going to do, I could protect me from getting hurt again. I could protect you from leaving me or protect somebody from breaking me. And as I started to uncover these things, I realized that I was still just this like three-year-old little boy that was just devastated and just wanted to feel safe and to feel loved. And as I started doing that work and spending that time there, I realized that one of the biggest things that was missing in my life was authenticity. Like everybody be like, how are you doing? And like for 35, I'm like, I'm great. And they're like, oh yeah, but you're life. And I'm like, no, it's easy. I'm glad it happened to me, right? Like I tried to skip the work and just be on the other side of like, oh, I'm so grateful that I chose that life but without processing any of the work in the middle, right? Like I was like, I'm really hurting right now. And I read this book that says that eventually my story will be a tool to help other people. So I'm gonna skip the whole middle part and I'm gonna go right to the conclusion like, no, I'm just really glad it happened, right? And I basically had a pressure cook myself enough that I broke, right? Like did I broke open and that like I was able to expose to what was there. And so what it really started happening is I started talking more openly. I remember the first time I shared to the world when I was a food blogger, I wrote this post called dare-belemia. You fought hard, but I won. And I posted it and in 24 hours, it had 2.1 million views and it went nuts. I ended up getting like 9,000 personal emails in 48 hours or something. It was mind-blowing. And everyone's like, what you the tattooed guy with an eight pack that's a Marine that's a New York Times best seller. I was like, yeah, I stick my finger in my throat every day. I was like, cause it's a way to control and self harm. And it was kind of like this expose, but I felt like I lost a hundred pounds that day and some chains were broken free. And it was the first time I ever realized that my story, my life, my experience had the ability to empower other people and not make it about me. And the other part that it was like just the most freeing thing that I've ever experienced. Like I lived my whole life as this very kind of like, and I'm gonna be really blunt, exhibiting very narcissistic, sociopathic, egotistical, insecure tendencies because I was just hiding and I was being a mouse, but I was using false energy and toxic masculinity to present this person to the world that everybody would leave alone, right? Like why am I covered in tattoos? Well, it wasn't. So I looked like cuddly, like a teddy bear. It was trying to keep people away. Why did I walk around in the Mohawk? Why was I was the biggest guy, the fastest guy? I was like, because my whole life has been getting beat up and bullied and broken, right? And I was basically trying to physically show the world that I wanted help and I never knew how to ask for it. And so when I got to that moment of like, wow, if I actually just say something and people hear it and I can be free and I can freely express, I'm able to process things. And that kind of started this journey. And I was in the middle of this company after I got out of the Marine Corps called Civilized Caveman and I was doing all that. And in that journey of discovery, I also realized I hated cooking and I didn't wanna be an influencer. And that it was just more poison. And I ignored that gut feeling, Debbie, for three years. And I just kept running it and running it. And I mean, I'm talking about like emotional infidelity, like unhealthy relationships, like addicted to social media. Like I mean, like I had two phones next to me, 24 seven, but I had millions of followers. So I had to talk to them, right? Like no containers, leaky energy, everything. And then it was on that journey of silence that I realized that that was the poison that was keeping me sick. And so I came home and without telling anybody, I walked away overnight. I gave the company away. I walked away from a million plus social media followers, five million website views a month, multi seven figure business. I called one of my mastermind students and said, if you want it, you can have it, but I never wanna talk about it again. And I just walked away and then I stopped. You walked away with no plan? Nothing, nothing. Two years. So you jumped off a cliff basically? I basically jumped off a cliff and I went dark for two years. I deleted all social media, changed my email, changed my phone number and I spent time doing the thing that I needed to do my whole life, which was building a relationship with the one person that I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with whether I like it or not. And there were some dark, dark, dark moments that I got to go through and I got to experience, which is what I had avoided my whole life, levels of acceptance and levels of trauma and repressed memories that I had basically intellectualized out of my conscious memory and shoved so far down subconsciously that like a lot of the times I felt like I was lying to myself when they would come up because it was so far removed and spent a lot of time doing that work. And so I came out of that work and I started to realize that every time I shared my story I felt free, I felt authentic, I felt like myself, I felt energized and at the same time I experienced a lot of my life. A lot of things that share a lot of similar traits and similar undertows and similar symptoms and similar patterns. And I basically spent 20 years of my life in therapy learning how to understand and communicate. And eventually when I did the work it gave me a tool set to just ask better questions and really, really see people. And in that process what I learned is I learned how to trust myself. And so now like I'll spend my day and I'll have a mastermind student sitting with me and they're like, I just can't figure this out, I just can't figure this out. I'm like, yeah, but you gotta forgive your dad, it was 30 years ago. And you just gotta write the email and they're like, what did you just say? And I was like, I don't know, that's just what came to me, it felt like that and that's how it was for me. They're like, yeah, but that's creepy. And I'm like, trust me, it's just as creepy in my brain. But I learned a long time ago that like the only way that I can live and thrive on this planet is that like I have to share my truth all the time. And I think a lot of what I experienced in my life, I chose to experience, so I had this lens, I had this ability to see things that I exhibited, right? And it takes one to see one, right? And once we're on the other side of it, it gets really, really clear. And so I feel like for me, like I have nothing to lose. Like I can sit there and be like, oh yeah, yeah, or I can say my truth. And if my truth lands, we have an amazing conversation. If it doesn't, they're like, you're a little cuckoo, I don't wanna really talk to you. I'm like, that's okay. Like it was nice to meet you. I love you, I'm here to support you anyway that I can. And so, yeah, what I tell people sometimes is like, if you've watched them Matrix, I don't see it in like binary, but when I talk to people, like I will catch myself looking at them and seeing their mouth moving. And I'm not hearing one word that comes out of their mouth because there's like something else, like in my brain or in my heart that like I wanna say. And it's something and Debbie, it's the same with business. It's the same with marketing people. Like you'll walk into a company that's had a marketing problem for like five years, they'll ask you one question and you will literally like spit out visually what it looks like, put it on a board and all of a sudden they're done. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know, right? Like maybe I took the red pill, right? But what I tell people too is like, you know, everyone's like, oh, it's like when you talk to me, you understand. I'm like, yeah, because for 34 years of my life, I felt the same exact feelings and I didn't understand. I didn't know they were there. I didn't know that they could process. And so I explored every modality of healing and I mean it like I did three years of prolonged exposure, four years of EMDR, two years of cognitive behavioral therapy, two years of cognitive processing therapy, plus on top of that, psychiatrist, psychologist. I was doing MDMA assisted hypnotherapy. I was doing psilocybin. I was doing everything that you could ever imagine. I had basically gone down the rabbit hole and then the biggest things for me, like literally the most transformative things in my life were breath and space. That was it. Like if I could tell you right now, I've recreated every ayahuasca experience in my life, every breakthrough in my life with just breath and space. And so I feel like I get it now. And you know, that's one of the things I wrote this quote for my life that I said, I know I've made it. Like the mark of true leadership for me is when the student executes the vision and thinks it was their idea. And that's kind of how I've prided my life. I'm like, how can I share these tools and invite people in and like, this is what worked for me. And so I don't try to like talk to people and pontificate and like, no, no, no, like I don't know what it's like. I'll never understand to be in your shoes with your lens and your paradigm. I'm like, but what I know is what it felt like on my side and like this was the thing for me that really, really was a catalyst. And I try to share from like a documentation perspective of like using my story as a permission slip for people. And that's, I don't know, it's still like therapy for me every day. It's like holding myself accountable every day. And that's kind of what the craziness happens up there. It's like- That's so awesome. Yeah, so, you know, I can tell you, I already know you read energy. It's not the words you read energy and you perceive and that's the communication. I so understand that. And I wanna ask you, well, let me just let me just let you brag for a minute, but this will help the listeners understand. If you don't mind, you'd make it brief, but just say a couple of names and companies that you have helped that have hired you so they understand where you're functioning. And then I'm gonna get to my question. Yeah, so I'll give you the big one. So Adidas, Titleist, TaylorMade, NBA teams on it, Aubrey Marcus, Jim Quick, Vital Proteins. The list goes on over 300 companies now. I've built a couple of unicorns and yeah, so. Did I get it? That's about the most I'll talk about myself. That's the vibe. So I wanna talk about this. So you do digital marketing. You've got a very different methodology without a doubt. And I wanna say for people like me out there who are listening or watching who go unconscious around marketing. So outside of the obvious of, go hire somebody to have it done for you. I just wanna ask you about that because when you start out by talking about relationships, beat algorithms, I'm with you, man. This is my jam. I am 100% life and business, connect, connect, connect, collaborate, relationship, partnership, like I love it, I thrive on it. But when we start talking about marketing, it is so difficult for me to not go ADHD and go away. So for people who have the same, what kind of marketing tactics can we do so that overwhelm goes away? And we can stay present forward. Yeah, it's such a good question. And I'm gonna give everybody kind of an out right now and a permission slip. One of the reasons that most entrepreneurs feel that way is because the entire industry is created to keep you feeling that way. So you stay stuck and spend money and the big guys can come in and win. And so what I say to people is that nobody has a marketing problem. Everybody has a relationship problem either with themselves, their team or their customers informed in that order. But we live in this world right now, this entrepreneurial, this business world, that's convinced like you have to be addicted to the hustle, you have to be addicted to the grind, you have to know these strategies and tactics, right? But name me one successful company that was built on strategies and tactics. There isn't one, right? Like just like you can't build a building without a foundation. You can't build a building without a blueprint. And what people spend most of their time doing is consuming strategies and tactics and teaching it that way. And so I have a rule, I'm only allowed to consume 30 minutes of content a week, that's it. Because if I'm consuming, I'm not creating. And what I will say and I'm gonna say this to every single one of you listening right now, I would bet that 99% of the time that you are overwhelmed or confused about marketing that you already know the answer, but you don't trust yourself. So you go out to consume content to find somebody else to say it. And then you're like, see, I should have done it. But then you advocate your own responsibility and leadership in that message and you end up a couple of weeks behind the curve, right? Like we all know, you can tell me all day that like, oh, but everybody said I should have eight social media platforms. We know that we can't give 20, I mean, 100% to eight platforms. We know that we neglect four of them. And I would tell you, great. Debbie, when you wake up in the morning, what's the first app that you open on your phone? And you're like Facebook. I'm like, what's the second? You're like Instagram. I'm like, great, don't be on any other platform. Because that's you knowing where you're passionate and where you are. So if you wanna go on the other platforms, you're gonna have to hire that out or you're gonna have to have a reason. But you also energetically attract your audience. They are attracted to you. They are like you. Which means if you're on Facebook, most of your audience is probably on Facebook. If you're on YouTube, most of your audience is probably on YouTube. Most of the distraction is everybody will tell you that with is the way of the game, but it's not. With just sets you up to fail, right? Like you can either go 100% deep with people on one platform or you can go 20% deep with people on eight platforms. And one of them will put you out of business, give you adrenal fatigue, stress you to the nine and then one will be rewarding where you're deeply in a relationship. And it's like, none of us could manage 30 dogs in a house by ourselves, right? But every marketing guru will tell you, well, you have to manage 30 social media platforms. I'm like, says who? Like says who like neglecting my child is not gonna make my child thrive, right? And so what I tell people is that you have to remember that at the core of everything, like at the core of marketing, marketing is just a two-way value-based long-term relationship. So let's take the word marketing out of it. If you dated somebody, like you courted them for like four months and then you went exclusive when then you start dating exclusively and then you propose and then you get married, you had to do things consistently over and over and over and over again until that wedding day. And so then I tell people like, great, that's your social media marketing, right? And then the moment they transact with you they give you their email, they give you their credit card, the marriage starts and what most companies will do and what most people will teach you is that, okay, your work is done because you got them to marry you. Well, name me one marriage that is lasted when the husband or wife moves out the day after the wedding where they stop communicating, where they go dark, right? Every human being has a friend in their life. You know when to text, what to text, how often to stay in touch, how often to get together, what they need, what they don't need because you pay attention and you're focused on them. That's marketing. And so the first thing that I'm gonna tell everybody is that when you're confused, when you're overwhelmed and you're like, oh, I can't do it all, it's probably because you're not supposed to do it all. And you already know that to be true. And if you give yourself that out, like give yourself the space to explore that and ask myself like, really, what's coming up? And why am I overwhelmed? It's not that you don't know how to do it, right? Like everybody knows that you can get somebody to post a VA to post. It's normally because your intuition, your gut knows that that is not the path to your success, right? It's a distraction. It's a self-sabotage mechanism. It's something there. And so you kind of got to check in and be like, why is this coming up? Now, don't get me wrong. If you're like, no, I'm just being lazy, like no, that's a different game, right? But if that overwhelm is there, normally it's because the marketing that you've seen, the way that you see other companies do it, has basically created confusion and overwhelmed the base of what it is. And at the end of the day, your job as a business owner, entrepreneur, leader, husband, wife, person is understanding where the person you're talking to is and then having one step further for them to go to and delivering a level of quality content or accountability to get them there. Doesn't matter about the platform. It doesn't matter about the modality. Doesn't matter whether it's free or paid. Any time that you're in that overwhelm, first, give yourself a permission slip to trust yourself and second, take a step back and be like, okay, I'm overwhelmed. I don't want to do this right now. This seems complicated, but you know what? Like let me check in for a minute. Where are my people right now? Oh, my people are on Instagram. Okay, cool. How do I help my people? I'll buy this. Okay, cool. Am I helping my people now by sitting here in this sludge and being distracted and overwhelmed? No, great. So let me just go give them something right now to help move them forward and then check in with myself again. And most of the time that tends to happen for me and all my students across the board, it's like focusing on what matters. And I'm gonna say this right now. There's a company I built, a supplement company. We made it to $100 million a year with two products on a $79 theme on Shopify. That was it. Instagram, Shopify, two products, $79 theme, no customization, nothing. And everybody over complicates this game because what happens is like, hey, I wanna go launch a supplement company. I wanna be just like company B. People start comparing themselves to company B's after state, which is five years ahead of where they are and not their before state, which is where they are, right? So it creates dissonance, it creates overwhelm. And so the thing that I wanna tell everybody listening to this, and if you're listening to this, it's because you already have the tools to be as big as you wanna be and wherever you wanna be. And most of the time, I would say in my experience, and I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs with this, is that they're losing the game because their measuring stick has broken, right? We're doing things because other people are doing it or somebody said it or they said it was a good idea, but it's not a part of a long game. It's not a part of a bigger foundation, right? And so you gotta check in with yourself and you gotta make sure that you're clear. You're clear on your infinite game, that book by Simon Sinek's amazing. Like what's your 100 year vision for your business? What's your 10 year vision for your business, right? And then taking that in understanding that you can't build a legacy business if you're measuring in days and weeks. You can only build a legacy business if you're measuring in like decades, right? And so what I find is that the more that you can pull yourself back from that overwhelm or when things get crazier, I don't know how to write these email sequences or I don't know where that product is gonna go or how it's gonna get there. I'm gonna tell you to pull your ripcord and unplug and I want you to check in with yourself back to like what your vision is, like what your goal is, what your end state is, and then just ask yourself, okay, is it possible that somebody's right that I need to be on Instagram as well as Facebook? Maybe, but it's also possible that I could be on TikTok or Twitter and accomplish the same thing, possibly, right? And you gotta give yourself the time to explore all those options so that you can make an informed decision because reactive businesses go out of business and proactive businesses build massive businesses. And so if any moment you don't feel like you're in the driver's seat of your business, I want you to pull your ripcord, understand that you're playing a game that's been played many times before and what you're feeling is completely normal and it still happens to me every day. Like I run nine companies, a mastermind and a lot of other things right now with one employee, one, one, and it's hard, it's challenging. We push ourselves every single day because my to-do list is 7,000 items long, right? It's never ending, right? Like interviews, I got podcasts, record, I got events to put on, I got products to make, ads to record, meetings to run, shareholder meetings, inventory, flights to China, and I'm across the spectrum with these things. But what it forces me to do is it forces me to take a very hard look at what Mike McCallouts would call my queen B role. What is my job? Like what is my non-negotiable job that I'm supposed to be doing that if I don't do it, nothing can move forward? And my team has the same one and the company has the same one. And so there's things that are dropped every single day, right? And I grow every day when I have to let go of my ego and let go of my pride and let go of all these beliefs I have that I can do it all or have to be Superman. I'm like, nope, gotta let that go, gotta let that go, gotta let that go. And that's kind of, and I know that's a really bloated long-winded answer so I'd listen to that one again. But I really just want everybody to understand that when you're in the game of like I should be or I could be or it could be different, you're already in the losing game because it's reactive. It's so right. I teach the same thing, George, in my realm with people who come to me about media and visibility who feel like they have to write the book and they have to be on camera and they have to have a podcast and they have to do the interviews and I'm like, you know, no way, sweet spot. You know your sweet spot because you love it and you have fun and because people show up there. Do that, do you. So I'm right there with you. I have had people write in knowing that you're coming on the show. So we're gonna have to take a break in a minute but I wanna start out at least get one question and we have a bunch of them. So we're gonna jam as much as we can to get these answered. So David wrote in and asked, George, what is working? The same old doesn't work and what once worked no longer does. The climate has changed dramatically with COVID. What can we expect and how should we navigate this now and going forward? What is the trend and future shadowing? I love that question and this is luckily a really easy answer. So when we understand human psychology, right? That's what really marketing and business is. It's about understanding humans and meeting them where they are and taking them one step further towards their goal. That's the definition of business, whether it's with a physical product and info product coaching, content, everything you do in your life and business as long as you're hitting that bucket, I'm meeting someone where they are and I'm giving them something to move one step forward, you're gonna win. Well, before pandemic happened, we were kind of living in a state of neutrality, right? People were like, hey, my life's working, it's not working, I might do this, I might do this, right? And we're really trying to move people from like neutrality to pleasure and then human agency was taken away and neutrality went away and everybody went in that negative, right? Because when you're taken away, when agency's taken away, you lose your ability to choose and then you get reactive and you get defensive. And so now a lot of people have been running marketing the same way, trying to take people with the same content or the same products from now net negative to pleasure, but they're skipping the step. And so what really happened is that the customer cycle basically doubled and the only reason it doubled is because people need twice as many evidential touch points of safety before they make a commitment because there's so much uncertainty in the world, right? And so where have companies won? Being authentic, being transparent, telling them that I don't know the answer, but we're in this together. And that we're here to support you, doubling their content, not doubling their effort, but just being more omnipresent, knowing that where it used to take 26 touch points to get somebody from wanting to buy a protein to spending $60, now it's taking 75 to 100, but not because your product is lacking, but because when human agency is removed, the amount of touch points required to get somebody to feel safe and confident in a decision has doubled or tripled because the rest of their life is uncertain. And so really, this isn't gonna go away. This doesn't, like when things are released again, human psychology doesn't just go back to where it was. Like when you nail and nail into a fence and you pull it out, there's still a hole, right? That's a very important thing to remember. And so the way to win this game is over communicate, to be in a relationship with your customers, to make yourselves available, to create content that genuinely serves and helps agnostic of credit card, and also just understanding that their cycle is going to be a little bit different. Like my businesses went down 82% across the board. So we were losing about $75,000 a day in the midst of this. And most of my co-founders and all of us are like, what do we do? I'm like, we do nothing. We have enough cash reserves, we hold, we don't do anything, right? And they're like, why? I'm like, because if we react right now, we're gonna lose the game. I was like, so the only reaction we're gonna do is we're gonna be more omnipresent. We're gonna be up, we're gonna do live calls, we're gonna do whatever. And I am so glad that we did that because now my business, like one of them is up 40% pre-pandemic because we didn't make any adjustments, right? And then I had three CEOs I know give away their companies because they couldn't manage the stress of trying to manage it. They're like, my business is over. And so when you think about navigating these things, these are the things I've been teaching from day one. The only way that you will ever win in business is by winning the customer. People don't buy the best product, they buy the best relationships. And what's happening right now is people are feeling the fact that they've been transacting for five years and now wondering why their customers are going away. But then you can navigate through it and look around and see there's other companies that are thriving and doubling because they've been over-communicating, they've been connected, they've been delivering on the value, they've been showing up responding omnipresent. And so it's really, really important. That's what I tell people. If your business, if your customer, potential customers' results are predicated on a credit card purchase, you don't have a business. The end, you don't. You run a high-end prostitution ring, that's it. And I'll give you a really tangible example. Can you imagine trying to walk in the door of Apple and then being like, you can't come in unless you pay for something first? Apple wouldn't have a business. Interesting, yeah. But it's also the reason that Apple owns 98% of the market share and only 3% of the market. How do they let you experience their equipment first or have an experience of them first? I don't know what... Apple Music, iMessage, all their other software features, people that are on the phone, you can go into the store and play with every device 100 times and then come out, right? And you think about this all the time. How many times have we walked through shopping malls and not bought something? What if you weren't allowed in the mall? But the mall itself is an experience. It's part of a touch point of a customer journey, right? But then we live in these other worlds, like digital products, physical products, like we promise we'll help you get here, but we're not confident enough to share it with you unless you pay us, right? And it's like, no, that's not the name of the game, right? People need to have the experience, right? So what I tell people is that your customers need to feel valuable, agnostic of credit card purchase, right? That's how you know you have a business. And so what's happening right now is that the companies that have been doing this that have been creating content that have been sharing on social, not like, you know, sale, sale, sale, keep on going, but this is how you do it, right? Like for example, like we, one of my companies, we sell supplements and one of our supplements can be replaced with food. And so we email them and tell them, you don't need the supplement, I'd rather you make this and this and this. And if you've already bought the supplement and you want a refund, we'll give it to you and you can keep the bottle. We get less than 1% refunds because we're authentic and transparent. And we've given them the tools and they've realized, well, you know what, thanks for the tools, but I don't want to use them. I'd rather just pay you $17 and you do it for me, right? Yeah, of course. But that's also why our loyalty is three and a half years, four years down the road. And so when we think about this, when you're navigating these things, it's always going to be about depth. And so customers will buy the best relationship and not the best product, which means it's predicated on every experience they had with you before decision point, which means paradigm was formed on first touch point, right? So if you're like, hey, you do a live video, if you leave a comment, I'll respond and you never respond, you've already lost the game. You've already lost game over, like paradigm formed, right? But if it's every time they're there, they're seeing you and your competitors as their speed dating and every time they comment, you respond, but yet your competitors are running the ads, well, you can thank your competitor for getting you a free customer and spending their money to get you somebody converted. And so what it is, is be overly communicative, be overly open, be very transparent, add value and actually help your people move them closer to the goal without having to buy your product. And then, oh, by the way, you've basically psychologically made their decision for them because you've burnt a neural pathway in their brain where they associate the success with you. And so they're purchasing decisions already basically waited for your favor. Because if you think about it and I'm like, hey, what was the most impactful keynote that you ever heard? And you're like, oh, this one. Or I was like, what was the most impactful book you ever heard? Like this one. I'm like, cool, what was it? You're like, oh, it changed my life, right? In a year, if I ran three ads in front of you with three different authors, no matter what the offer, you would buy the one that the book changed your life. Guaranteed. Absolutely guaranteed. Because you already have a social trigger ingrained into you with success associated that when I interacted with that person, when I was in a relationship with that person, they added so much value, it changed my life. And of course, I trust them. I'm some consciously safe with them. I've already experienced joy with them. And so there's a lot of stuff here. And when it comes to this, and I wanna say this too, and this is all in this COVID answer, but really important to remember, the other way that people lose the game of marketing is they look at marketing in the moment, right? They're like, oh, I want clicks on this ad. I want views on this video. I want the virality of this kitten, right? And I was like, but you have to realize that that moment is impacting the results three to six months later, not in that moment, right? And it's like, cool. I'm glad that you posted kittens every day for three months. And now you wonder why nobody will buy your product and everybody just wants humor. And I'm like, because you trained people for attention and attracted the wrong people, right? Or, you know, I'm just gonna do this coupon this one time. And I'm like, cool. Well, you wonder why they saw a coupon the first time and then they clicked on 19 more of your ads and never bought until you ran another coupon because you created a coupon culture. That was the paradigm of the relationship. And so it's really important to remember that customer journeys are not linear. They're systematic, right? Think about you buying a car. Think about you online shopping or you see something in a store, you come home, you price check it, you go to their Facebook, you see it on a billboard, you hear it on a radio and then three weeks later, you buy it. It wasn't, Debbie went from A to B to C to D to E. And so all of those touch points need to be congruent and deep. So they become evidence for that person to feel safe. So whatever their decision is or whenever they get to that decision tree, they have all the evidence required to kind of make that commitment. So depth over communicate, authenticity, deliver the value wherever you can and just understand that it's going to be normal for buying cycles to double or expand greater than they were. And that's going to maintain for a while if not become the new norm because the other thing that's happened during this pandemic is the veils got pulled away very quickly because you can't hide anymore when everybody's online and all the things are coming out, right? There were companies that went dark, companies that laid off employees when they said they wouldn't. Some of the most popular television shows in the world not paying their staff and then hiring temperature, like all the cards are on the table. And so people are going to have a very skeptical lens because not only did the world basically remove their human agency, they got to see all the cards on the table and like who was important. And like we've experienced, right? There's companies that during this are like, we'll extend our refund period indefinitely. And other ones like you don't get a refund. Well, when those things happen, who do you think people are going to loyalties with, right? It's about emoting and being on the same level of them. So they're probably answers to 20 questions in that, but that's a lot to do. You're so good and I'm so grateful. And David, I'm sure who asked the question is going to get a ton out of that. And I want to say, and I'm reviewing as you're talking myself. So rather than me go to the commercial I was about visible visionaries, which is a book writing platform you can join. I just want to like riff off of that and say, you know, intuitively, like I got that clearly, you know, anyway, you could feel the energy of what's going on out there because I'm a part of that energy. I'm a consumer too. So one of the things I started doing was I was offering free book writing webinars to people. And I was, I loved how many people showed up. Like that made me so happy to see the amount of registrations and people showed up live and, you know, who I could help in all those webinars. And the next thing I did was I created a COVID platform. Basically say, look, man, if you're bored out of your gourd, this is like a great time in six months. Stand for your greatness. Have something to show for this time and get your message and story out. So many people are creative. They don't know how to write their book. Let me help you get there. So I created a price point that it's stupid. Like, you know, you can totally do that. Yep, yep, yep. Debbie dashinger.com slash visible visionaries, if you want to write. The other thing I'm doing is I, I have wanted to do this for so long because my blend of being is not just a coach. Like that's awesome. But really who I am as a healer, right? And I get information in my realm and I've been wanting so much to work with people to heal the visibility issue so they can really be the light workers that came here to be. So my platform is not just writing, but it's also once a month, you get to work with a healer. And it's either gonna be me or somebody magnificent in my circle, I'm bringing in to work with you. So not only will your book change in your interviews, but your being right now and forevermore amen is gonna be wholly different. And that for me is like, what an awesome time to make this offering to people. Debbie, can I jump on your offering real quick for you? Of course, yeah. So I just, I want to be clear for everybody listening. You know, Debbie, you focus on helping pull books out of people, right? But really what you do is you help people find their own light and writing books is just one of those modalities. And what I'll tell everybody listening to this all day is that, you know, we all tend to thrive for the same level of greatness like where we want to go. We want to be conscious. We want to be awake. We want to be fulfilled. We want to have a purpose. We want to be altruistic, like whatever resonates with you. And what I'll tell you is that there's 180 different paths to get there, right? But it all starts with picking one. And I'm gonna tell you when you pick one, you're just picking the one with the wrapping paper that resonates with you. So the person delivering it can get the foundation laid so you get the same results in what you're seeking. And so Debbie, I just want to acknowledge you because I know what you do. And I'm very aware of the work that you do and everything. And I wrote a book and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. And it's because I was forced to put my thoughts to typing or to words and really take an honest look at myself and like where I was in my journey. And so I use videos, I use podcasts, I use everything, but really I explore everybody. Everybody has got a book in them. Everybody has a book in them. And I actually help people write books as well through one of my other businesses. But we don't even care if you publish the book. It's really about having the space to kind of explore that, to get it out, to get the story out, to get cathartic with it and to help discover that light that is what attracts people to you in your business and what attracts people to you in your life and really helps you make a difference. And so I just want to acknowledge you for that. And I love what you're doing with that. It's absolutely amazing. So I would just encourage everybody to jump on that as soon as possible. Thank you, thank you, bless you. I really appreciate that so much. And something you just said, George, I want to ask you about, because when I was looking into you, I noticed that your company is called Ahua, Huaya, Inc. And I could feel- Ahua, Huaya, Inc. I could feel it as shamanistic implications. That's just me. What does that mean to you, that word? And why did you take it as your company name? Yeah, so that word is a song. It is an Icaros from a shaman in Peru about a plant medicine journey to self-discovery and enlightenment, basically. And it's so similar to like ayahuasca and my wife actually found it. And when we were thinking about like what I do and what we do and who we want to be in the world, I was like, I need accountability and a reminder of my own self-worth and self-love and the work that I've done every single day. And I know if we name it this, every single person's gonna ask me why it's named it and how to spell it and what it means. And it really, really is like an accountability container for me to re-ground me and check me in that like, I won't always know all the answers and that's okay. And I can trust and take a breath and stay really focused and intentional, I'll figure them out. And it really grounds me and brings me back to a lot of the experiences that I've had. And so it's really encompassing with me about helping people be the light because it was in that moment that like I discovered that I had a light that was worth sharing because for years I was like, I'm damaged goods. I don't even feel things. I'm not empathetic, I'm compassionate. What if I'm just dead on the inside? And when you've witnessed some of the things I have, 28 Marines lost, witnessed three suicides, been to combat three times. Like the amount of stuff that I witnessed, like I was convinced every day that like I didn't belong here. And I remember having thoughts two, three years old that like I don't belong on this planet. I don't belong on this planet. I don't belong on this planet. And the truth was is that my soul and my body were just completely disconnected from each other. And I do belong here, but it started with owning my own story and owning my voice and also falling in love with my darkness, which is what created my light. And it all happened there. And so when we heard that song, we were actually playing it on our playlist for like a year after. And my wife's like, I can hate the name of your company. Like me too, actually. And it was old and it was like an anchor to the past. And she was like this. And I was like, yes. And so it's a really good reminder for me every single day. So that's why I do that. Okay. And I want to get this question and this is a good question. Melanie said, George, how do we stay? Well, no, wait. This is not the question because I got to get this one and somebody said something so good. Here we go. Heidi. George, in the podcast space, when you are working with listeners, you never see how best to convert. I'm a podcaster and I like to learn how to turn listeners into buyers. Dude, how do I move the needle there? This is my favorite one. I've never shared this publicly and I'm so excited to share this right now. This is normally reserved for six and seven figure clients. So let me tell you the biggest mistake podcasters make. There's two of them. Number one is you give too many destinations and calls to action, not understanding the modality and consumption of your consumer. And number two, you consistently change your calls to action, creating incongruent customer relationships. Okay. I need examples. What do you mean by? I'm going to give you one right now. Yeah. So notice how in my bio, there's only one place to find me, right? Mind of George. I've been on over 1,500 podcasts, Debbie, in the last four years and guess what the call to action on every single podcast is. MindofGeorge.com Okay. Not go find me on Instagram, go find me on Facebook, go find me on Twitter, go find me on YouTube. Now here's what's beautiful. Mind of George didn't have a website on it until three months ago. I bought the vanity URL at GoDaddy, so you need to pick one destination. Mind of George, mind of Debbie, you know, Debbie's something, right? And then every single podcast, you do organically for you and then on any single podcast tour, you need to give the same call to action. And so think about it. If a customer takes 26 touch points to buy a product, think about how many it takes to listen and how many times to hear you and how many times repetitive, right? Like we can go back to radio commercial jingles and you can still tell me some of the phone numbers, right? Right. Why do you think they said them seven times in 45 seconds? Right? Because whenever you got to decision point, you then knew exactly where to go when you were ready to convert and commit. And so what happens is in podcasting, a lot of people get people convinced to come in and not enrolled to come in. They come in too soon. They ask for the monogamous relationship too soon, right? And so if you think about it, like I'm on your show, you have entrepreneurs, you have healers, you have spiritual walk people, right? And so if you ask me what I do, I'm like, I help healers ethically scale their business, right? When I go on a show for realtors, like what do you do? I'm like, I help realtors ethically scale their business. And they're like, what about, you know, gym owners? I help gym owners ethically scale their business. So where can they find you? I'm like, oh, well, I'll give you my three step process for scaling your gym business, but it's all at mindofgeorge.com. Just remember mindofgeorge.com. I'll give you my three step process for scaling your healing company at mindofgeorge.com, mindofgeorge.com. Oh, and by the way, I don't even need your email, the video's free on the homepage, but I wanna make it easy for you to remember. Cause don't worry if you're listening, if you're running right now, I know it's really, really easy just to remember mindofgeorge.com. So when you think about it, you then now turn every other podcast episode you go on into an asset, right? And it's really easy for people like, oh, but I have this offer, I have this offer, this offer, I'm like, cool, change the top of the homepage to whatever the current offer is. So for three years, that link only went to a Facebook group. And then three months ago, we turned it into a website and the Facebook group is still linked on the same page. And so now every podcast I've done in the last four or five years is an asset. And so now like I'll go back to one of the most popular episodes I did, I think got 21 million downloads and it converted really well. So now I go spend my ad dollars to promote their podcast to then drive their customers back to me. Beautiful. Like you'd be like, why am I getting all this traffic? I'm like, oh Debbie, I forgot to tell you, I was running ads to your podcast. I forgot to tell you, I just figured you wouldn't mind. You know what I'm saying? At all. You have to think about it. So every business owner, every podcaster has what I call a launch belief. Some people call it the dominant belief. You have this one thing that you are known for that you help people with, right? But what tends to happen is that once you get a little bit of success with it, the people will tell you to over complicate it and dilute it, right? Well, now I have this thing and this thing and this lead magnet and boom. And I'm like, oh, really all you're doing is attracting all the wrong people because if you don't just keep filling that core offer consistently and consistently, let's say you have a 20 episode spectrum, right? And some people listen to every episode but some don't, right? And so like three of the episodes you have this call to action, three of the episodes you have this one, three of the episodes you have this one, really they're getting mixed messages that scream lack of certainty, lack of safety and lack of authority. So they can't trust you to give you their credit card in the first place, right? Can you imagine if Nike today was like, just do it but tomorrow they're like maybe do it and the next day they're like, don't do it. Whatever. But tomorrow, if you feel like doing it, right? If you show up, think about it. This is so good. Can I tell you that I teach this when I teach people how to be interviewed? This is exactly what I say. This is key core messaging. And if you're repetitive about it, it's so easy for people to find you. So I'm like right there with you buddy, like a thousand percent, a thousand percent. And so I just wanna tell everybody, I wanna sum that real quick and I didn't mean to cut you off. And this is something I learned in the Marine Corps. Leadership is not saying something once, it's saying the same thing as many times is required till the last person gets it. That's leadership, which means you as a podcaster, your job is to say the same thing to the same place until a hundred percent of your audience gets there. And then and only then can you complicate the process. Can you add other entry points? Because at the end of the day, your core customer journey and I don't care what your business is, I can find you $10 million a year for one core customer journey. Everything else is just a distraction, everything. Rich, thank you very much. I promise to get my buddy out on time. So we're gonna do that. Give me your dare to dream, George. What are you next dare to dream? My next dare to dream is, so every one of my companies has an NGO associated with it and some of them we're using and some of them we can't afford to yet. And so my next is to make sure every one of my companies is donating 10% of gross to the charities that we support and making sure that it's a non-negotiable and we do everything in our power to make sure that happens because there is no point in owning or running a business if you're not giving back with it. Awesome. I know you need to run. I adore you so much. Thank you for spending this time with us. I have so many more questions. So we might have to revisit this. We'll do episode, we'll do number two and we'll go long, I'll go long all day. That's awesome. And I will be in touch with you within a week. Thanks buddy, so much. You really delivered, I appreciate it. Thank you so much and thank you for everybody. The one gift that I can never give back to you is time and you chose to spend it with me. So thank you. And if I can be of any service, any help, there's about a million dollars with the free resources of mindofgeorge.com. I can testify. It doesn't even require your email. So check them out, let my team know if we can help you in any way and just remember that relationships will always be the algorithms. That's beautiful. Yeah, so if you would like to, and I encourage you to find out more about him, go to mindofgeorge.com. He's also got a Facebook group that you can join and he's got tons of free videos and more there. And it's exactly what he's been saying, relationships, speed algorithms, just join and start watching those videos, very instructional. So yes, George's really delivered an amazing show. I wanna end today's show with this quote from Terence McKenna, which is, shamanism is about shape-shifting. Shamanism is about doing phenomenology with a toolkit that works. Shamanism is essentially a living tradition of alchemy that is not seeking the stone, but is found the stone. I'm Debbie Daschinger and thank you for joining us today on Dare to Dream, the award-winning podcast. Next week on the show, on this weekly number one transformation conversation, the guest is James Redfield. James has asked me to come on to do a series of conversations with you at this auspicious time. So he'll actually be making four future appearances and I really welcome this wisdom-based, guidance-based conversation that we're gonna be having. If you would like to see us, go to youtube.com slash Debbie Daschinger. And remember, if it is your time, much as George and I were just talking, for you to get your book out there and you would like guidance to do it, he is not kidding when he says it's not easy. I've written three, I produce anthologies, I've got a dog anthology I'm producing and bringing amazing writers on board for. So my website, Debbie Daschinger.com, you're welcome to join me there. All the information and testimonies and free things for you are there as well. And if you would like to be part of this membership platform, it's so stupid easy. And I'm gonna absolutely guide you through the process. All you have to do is be you, show up, I'll get you there from idea to published. It's Debbie Daschinger.com slash visible visionaries. D-E-B-B-I-D is in David, A-C-H-I-N-G-E-R.com slash visible visionaries. And remember folks, the secret of success is to have the courage to begin in the first place. Thanks for joining us today on Dear to Dream as always an honor and a pleasure.